


On Guard

by Suzelle



Series: Blades and Bucklers [1]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Awkward Conversations, F/F, Pre-Relationship, Queer Cassandra, Varric Tethras Is So Done
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:08:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26343121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suzelle/pseuds/Suzelle
Summary: Cassandra spends the journey to the Hinterlands trying to unravel the mystery that is Shohreh Lavellan. She is quiet in Haven, doling out her words with the same care she takes in polishing her borrowed longsword. She alternates between solemnity and wry jokes that tug rare smiles from Cassandra, in a way so few can do. Her lips thin when she is called “Herald,” but neither does she dispute the title. Her silence keeps Cassandra from handing over her full trust—she would feel better about a woman who declared her views outright, even if they placed them at odds. Perhaps she just needed time.In the early days of the Inquisition, Cassandra and Lavellan stumble through mistrust towards understanding.
Relationships: Cassandra Pentaghast & Varric Tethras, Female Inquisitor/Cassandra Pentaghast, Female Lavellan/Cassandra Pentaghast
Series: Blades and Bucklers [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1914196
Comments: 4
Kudos: 44





	On Guard

**Author's Note:**

> With thanks to Salvage for the beta and putting up with all my screaming. 
> 
> Once again featuring Shohreh Lavellan: Dalish warrior, would rather make jokes than indulge in emotions, extremely competent with a sword that's approximately her height.

Cassandra spends the journey to the Hinterlands trying to unravel the mystery that is Shohreh Lavellan.

She is quiet in Haven, doling out her words with the same care she takes in polishing her borrowed longsword. She alternates between solemnity and wry jokes that tug rare smiles from Cassandra, in a way so few can do. She listens carefully to Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine, and Cassandra cannot tell if she favors seeking the mages or the templars. Her lips thin when she is called “Herald,” but neither does she dispute the title. Her silence keeps Cassandra from handing over her full trust—she would feel better about a woman who declared her views outright, even if they placed them at odds. Perhaps she just needed time. 

She reveals little about herself and her background. If not for the branch marks etched upon her face, Cassandra would almost forget she is Dalish—not something she would have expected from the notoriously proud, isolationist elves. One afternoon she argues fiercely with Solas in her most overt display of emotion thus far, their raised voices echoing back to where Cassandra and Varric walk awkwardly behind them. She tries not to listen in, glancing sidelong at Varric instead, who appears entirely fascinated. He catches her look and shrugs.

“Historiographers, both of them,” he says, and Cassandra decides not to pry further.

Lavellan drums her fingers on the hilt of her sword as they walk, humming softly to herself, lost in her own thoughts when Cassandra approaches her. “It occurs to me I don’t actually know much about you.”

Lavellan huffs a soft chuckle. “What would you like to know?”

Cassandra stumbles over her words as her thoughts gather behind them. “I’m…not sure, exactly. Where are you from?” 

She hesitates briefly before she answers. “My clan never stayed in one place for long. Primarily we roamed the northern Free Marches.”

“Oh? I didn’t think your people roamed that far north. Clearly I’m mistaken.”

Lavellan shrugs in silence. Cassandra presses on.

“I’m told some members of your clan might still be alive. Do you intend to go back?”

Her nose wrinkles as if she’s been forced to swallow something sour, but it smooths out just as quickly and she gives another light, humorless laugh. “I might, once this is done.”

“It will not be the same, when you do.”

“That’s the beauty of a nomadic people.” This time, Lavellan’s smile seems genuine, her eyes sparkling as she looks up at Cassandra. “Nothing is ever the same.”

Cassandra stares at her in a new light. “I...suppose that is one way of looking at it. Much like tending to business of the Divine.”

Lavellan nods. “What about you? So long as we’re getting to know each other.”

Maker’s breath. Cassandra inhales sharply, overhears a dwarflike snort behind her, and contemplates making a rude gesture back to where she knows Varric follows them. “There’s…not much to know.”

Lavellan scowls, her cheeks turning a faint pink. “If you don’t want to talk, then—”

“No, I just—oh, very well.” She supposed it was only fair.

“My name is Cassandra Pentaghast, daughter of the royal house of Nevarra, seventy-eighth in line for the Nevarran throne. I joined the Seekers of Truth as a young woman, and was with the Order until they withdrew from the Chantry. I remained as the Divine’s Right Hand, carrying out her order to form the Inquisition—and here we are. That’s all there is to know, my lady.”

“‘ _My lady._ ’” Lavellan gives a distinctly unladylike snort. “That’s a new one. Should I call you the same, seventy-eighth in line for the Nevarran throne?”

It’s Cassandra’s turn for a bitter laugh. ““The Pentaghasts are a very large clan. Half of Cumberland could say the same. “

“Really?”

“No, but it feels that way. I have hundreds of relatives so distant, they need charts to prove we’re related at all. And they have them, oh, yes. The Pentaghasts value their precious blood like it runs with gold.”

“Hmm.” Lavellan shakes her head. “Some Dalish could say the same.”

Now, that was interesting. But Cassandra suspects if she pried any further, Lavellan would pry in turn, and neither of them seemed to be taking much joy out of the conversation. So she falls back into silence, watching as Lavellan resumes tapping her fingers along the hilt of her sword. They had that much in common, at least—Cassandra suspects that if a horde of demons descended upon them right now, begging to be stabbed, both their moods would improve considerably.

***

They’re met with rebel mages and templars instead of demons, just south of the Crossroads, and Cassandra fights back to back with Lavellan, falling into place just as they did in the valley. A mage separates them, Cassandra falling on him to keep his spell from striking Lavellan, but it is clear Lavellan is more than capable of defending herself, moving with the swift confidence of a practiced warrior. Cassandra turns her attention to Varric, intent on shooting as many templars as he can, and snarls at him to watch his back when she slams her shield into a mage about to shoot him from behind.

When the smoke clears, she sees Lavellan kneeling over the body of a templar, her sword buried in a gap of the armor. Her head is bowed, strands of hair falling from her bun to cover her eyes, and her hands shake when she presses one against the templar and withdraws her sword with the other, the blade wobbling when she wipes the blood away with the bottom of her tunic.

“ _Ir abelas_ ,” she murmurs, barely audible. Cassandra’s brow furrows in concern—she did not act like this at the rifts—but when she approaches Lavellan dons her cool, tempered mask, eyes flinty and voice steady. “Mother Giselle should be nearby, yes?”

She acknowledges the Inquisition soldiers with solemn salutes, her voice kind when she speaks to them, and Cassandra cannot deny a certain charm about her, balanced between her sincerity and her poor attempts at humor. Cassandra speaks with Corporal Vale while Lavellan convenes with Mother Giselle, her heart sinking as she realizes the scope of the mess in this region. Vale is impressed by Lavellan’s inquisitive nature and eagerness to help, and he watches her with Cassandra while she speaks to refugees and villagers.

“Not what I expected,” he says to Cassandra. “But perhaps that’s good. You come to assume no one gives a shit about these people anymore.”

They are silent when they leave the crossroads, Lavellan’s mask impenetrable, her eyes cold and distant. They make camp near a large lake, the clear water taking on a golden hue in the sunset, and by the time they have a fire going Lavellan seems to have relaxed, her legs stretched out before the fire as she removes her cuirass. Scout Harding joins them and Lavellan flirts with her shamelessly, cajoling the serious dwarf into helping her catch fish at the lake. They cook the fish using seasonings from Harding’s supply, and Lavellan trades bawdy jokes with Varric while they eat, her laughter an undignified sort of cackle that is equal parts grating and endearing. Cassandra polishes her sword in silence as she watches, content to be removed from the situation, and tries to ignore Solas sitting beside her, writing in a journal and eyeing Lavellan with a keen, somewhat patronizing look.

Lavellan offers to take a turn when they sort out watches but Cassandra refuses, giving some barely believable excuse that cannot hide the truth, that the elf has not yet earned that trust. Varric also offers and Cassandra refuses again, scowling this time, and Varric glowers at her before he stalks back to his tent. She, Harding, and Solas divide the hours between them, and she winds up with the first watch, sitting alone before the fire while the rest of them retreat to their tents. The moon barely shines, a tiny sliver on the horizon, but the night sky glows anyway, the faint green of a rift tinging the southwest horizon. They cannot see the Breach from here, but Cassandra imagines it, the image of its swirling power burned forever in her mind. She suddenly misses Justinia, still barely mourned, and wonders what Most Holy would have thought of their fledgling little band. If Cassandra’s execution of her will matched her vision.

A low, muffled sound breaks her out of her reverie, and she frowns, tensed for trouble, her hand on the hilt of her sword. But the sound comes from within the camp, akin to a dying animal, and Cassandra looks around to pinpoint its source at the tent she shares with Lavellan. She approaches the tent cautiously and opens the entry flap with care. Her eyes adjust further to the dark, and she freezes to see that Lavellan lays sobbing on her bedroll, a blanket over her mouth to stifle the sound, her legs curled in against her stomach. Her entire body trembles, tears running down her cheeks, and the mark on her left palm pulses silently, the light flaring and fading in time with her breath.

Cassandra tries to retreat silently, but she backs into the tent pole and Lavellan looks up with a start. Her face crumples even further, this time in shame, and she stabs furiously at her eyes with her knuckles. 

“Fuck,” she half-whispers, her voice thick from tears. “You weren’t supposed to see this.”

Cassandra raises her eyebrows. “I can pretend I didn’t. If that’s what you’d like.”

Lavellan opens her mouth to answer but then shuts it, the green light on her hand illuminating her the misery in her face. Cassandra sighs. “Come outside. Fresh air is better than lying sleepless in here.”

Lavellan follows her out of the tent and sits beside her near the dying embers of the fire. Close-up, the flames illuminate her bloodshot, swollen eyes, the way her hands still tremble when she fiddles with a thread of her tunic. Her hair cascades over her shoulders in gentle waves, tucked behind her ears to keep it from her face, making her appear more vulnerable than when she draws it back into a businesslike knot in daylight. 

“I’m sorry,” she mutters, staring at the fire. “This won’t happen again.”

Cassandra stares at her, at a loss for words. She’s never been good at comforting people, hasn’t the slightest idea of anything she might say to Lavellan. She did not expect this from the stoic, pensive elf, and suddenly fears what it might mean for their hopes for the Herald. “Did something happen today? Or is it just…”

“Being thrown into a war that’s not mine? Surviving a massacre, marked by the Fade, becoming the face of a holy war?” Lavellan’s mouth twists in a humorless smile. “No, I was coping just fine with all that.” 

“Ah,” Cassandra says, and they fall into an awkward silence. The logs of the fire crackle as they fall on one another, sparks floating up into the night. 

“I’ve never killed a man before,” Lavellan says at last. “Not before today.”

The words shock Cassandra. She stares at the compact, muscular elf who’d so frightened her that day on the ice, when she picked up a greatsword like it weighed nothing and slaughtered half a dozen demons without breaking a sweat. She had ordered Lavellan to drop her weapon in a half-dazed panic, certain she could disarm her if need be but not sure she could accomplish it unscathed.

“Surely not. The way you fight…”

“I’m a hunter, Seeker Pentaghast, a guardian of my clan. We train daily in preparation for attacks by _shemlen_ , but we pray such attacks never come. For all my adult life, that prayer has been answered.” Lavellan picks up a twig from the ground and tosses it into the fire. “I have killed countless animals, but that is the nature of things, integral to our survival. Is it the nature of things for me to destroy someone who had a life, a family, who only acted on his orders, as I did? To tear his soul from his body for no reason but that chance and circumstance have brought me here? It is proving much harder to sit with.” 

Cassandra nods, studying her companion through a sidelong glance. She had guessed Lavellan to be around her age, give or take a couple years, but she suddenly seems younger, a shade of innocence lightening her round, unlined face and piercing brown eyes. There is a striking loveliness to her Cassandra hadn’t noticed before, her high cheekbones shadowed in the firelight, her gaze still full of intensity alongside her grief.

“I am sorry,” she says at last. “It is not something any of us ever wish to do.”

Lavellan shrugs. “I’ll have to get used to it—something tells me I’ll be killing a great deal more, before this is over. I don’t suppose you have any tips?”

Cassandra snorts. She can still remember the first time she killed someone—multiple someones, a group of blood mages shortly after undergoing her vigil half a lifetime ago. The rest have somewhat blurred together over the years, a fact she regards with some shame, and she prays the Maker will forgive her for it, one sin among many. For years, every death would tear off a piece of her, but after a time she’d become hardened, immune to the consequences of each life taken. This is not a fate she wishes for Lavellan.

“In battle, such as the one today, all I can advise is to remember they have entered combat willingly, as willingly as you.” A thought occurs to her, and she eyes Lavellan piercingly. “You _do_ enter combat prepared to die, yes?” 

Lavellan meets her gaze, a shade of defiance in her eyes. “Of course.”

“Good. Not that I believe you will, with your own abilities combined with my own. Your life is perhaps the most valuable one in Thedas now.”

“Lucky me,” Lavellan says, and her macabre tone draws a small laugh from Cassandra. There is some kinship there, finding humor out of the darkness that shapes their lives.

“As for the rest…it helps to have belief. And I do not mean in the Maker, or your gods. In your cause. To know in your bones that what you do is right.” She does not add that sometimes, later, that knowledge can be proven wrong. It does not do to stew in that sort of regret. 

“So because our cause is righteous, others must fall?” Anger tints Lavellan’s voice now.

“I did not say that.” Cassandra fights to keep impatience from her voice. “I am only saying that nothing in this life is worth doing if you do not believe in it. As to whether you believe in the Inquisition? Only you can answer that, Lavellan.”

“Shohreh,” she said quietly. “My name is Shohreh.”

“Shohreh, then,” Cassandra says. She weighs her next words carefully, having little desire to speak them but knowing her conscience will not be clear until she does. “I would be concerned if this did not trouble you. And you are right. You will take more lives before this is over. You are not bound to this cause, as Leliana has pointed out far more often than I’d like. If war weighs too heavily on you, there is no shame in that. You are free to leave us at any time.”

Shohreh looks up at her, startled. “You can’t mean that.”

“Your life is your own,” Cassandra answers simply. “You are no longer our prisoner. I would like for you to stay. But I cannot make you.”

“She never means that, you know!” A rasping, bitter voice calls out from Varric’s tent. 

“Nobody asked you, dwarf!” Cassandra shouts back, and grasps her temples with one hand. Too many missteps have led her to this place. She would not make the same mistakes twice. 

Shohreh’s mouth twitches at the exchange, close to a true smile, and she gives Cassandra a small nod. “Thank you,” she murmurs, and leans back until she lies flat on the ground, her arms pillowing her head as she stares up at the night sky. Her expression becomes inscrutable once more, hidden in the darkness, and Cassandra stands to return to their tent. Shohreh does not return before she drifts off to sleep, and she sends a short prayer up to the Maker, that whatever she decides lends itself to the good of Thedas.

When she awakes the next morning, she finds Shohreh beside the lake, sword in hand, moving through a complex cutting pattern with the beauty of a dance. Cassandra watches her, her loose hair rippling in the sunlight, and does not deny her relief.


End file.
